BikerBabe

Did I ever mention that I was kicked out of almost every twig I ever attended?  I've always had a real hard time trusting without verification on anything I was told when I was younger, so usually got in trouble for questioning what I was told to believe.  The only tithe they got from me, was when my mother gave me money and didn't look away so I had to put it in the horn of plenty.  *sigh*  

I was 16 back then in 1974 and there were some cute guys at fellowship.  I lost interest almost immediately in TWI, but humored my mom, took the class (John Lynn ran it) and she thought it was great for me.  I figured by the end of that school year I'd be long gone ... then they got their hooks into my mom shortly after my dad passed away.  I spent the next 30 yrs trying to get her away from TWI and she did finally stop attending, the day she died.  She was F. Corps 12 and I barely made it thru the Intermediate class.

I prefer space and strategy sim city type building games, connect 3's when braindead and all kinds of open world games.  I test games for various game Devs too.  When I feel up to it, I plop on the Vive headset and play some Virtual Reality games.  Not to mention all of that is much more fun than watching paint dry.  :)

I have 941 games on Steam atm.  70 more games are on my wishlist.  Then there's GOG, Epic and a few others I have some other games on.  LOL.

 

Both of my sons bought the game when it was first released.  I have been building my own gaming computers since 1998 and over the years helped many game Devs by Alpha and Beta testing their games.

 

I was in a cult for way way too many years.  Why would I want to play a game about something I already lived thru?  Hahahaha.  /sarc off  Let me know what it's like to play if one of ya'll buy it.  In Steam I use the nick I use almost everywhere online, LComeno.  :)

Trust ... but verify!

LOL.  It varies from day to day what blades I may have on me.  I have various sizes ... small clip on, buck, carpet fold up, one similar to a buck I got from a friend, my bayonet, or my spear.  :)   Never had any reason to use one, except for their intended purpose, cutting objects I need smaller.  My past rapes though, memories will pop up from time to time and it just makes me feel better to have a blade on me.  70's, 80's, 90's ... it will NEVER happen again.  

... and some people wonder why I always have a blade somewhere on me when I'm outside my home.  There's another one in my wallet should I need a back up.  Keeps these types away from me.  Narrowminded people and I rarely get along. 

Just fired my doctor yesterday after silently putting up with 3 months of her crap.  (Knowing I can't live without my thyroid meds every day, since mine was removed.)  Easy enough to find a new one, but it's senseless for a doc to take me off 20 years of proven successful treatment and start from scratch, plus stop the meds I am on or cut the doses in half ... just because I am now 65?  Really?

Sorry, all of this has done nothing but make my Crohn's Disease flare up.  I gotta run.  LOL.  (No peeking while I'm gone!)

I had contact first with The Way.  That led my mother into joining, then as I got older, my kids were exposed when young.  My kids and I got out are fine and have no lasting effects, but my mother died still believing everything the cult told her to.  I'm left to ponder if I will see her again when I get to heaven.  *sigh*

I've been gone for years from here.  I see this thread and I feel like I never left.  I've so missed you guys and gals!  Have a pretty sunset from last night on me.

 

I remember my mother hitchhiking from Indiana (Rome City campus) to Gunnison, Co. to do their fitness program there.  She was 61 years old back then.  Today I'm 65 and the last thing on my mind is hitchhiking anywhere!!!  I do remember enjoying picking on my mom by informing her she spent years teaching me right from wrong and hitching was cool in the 60's and early 70's, but by the time she did it, it was NOT safe.  She went anyway, I just prayed she'd make it back alive and in good condition.

Thanks guys! You are correct in that they weren't pleasant to go thru Twinky. It does have a humorous side though .. I lost a little over a foot of my small bowel back in 1999 and I ended up getting put with the most wonderful surgeon named Dr. Shamos. He's originally from South Africa, so has a really nice british accent when he talks that I just love listening to. I could talk to him all day! He made that horribly painful experience much easier to deal with via the love and care he showed to me. He came and saw me more than any other doctors ever have. Fast forward to 2011 or 12 (I forget exactly) and I got new pain in my gut, but it wasn't the Crohn's Disease .. it was gallbladder. I was totally full of stones and infected! There was nothing that could be done but to remove my gallbladder. The question was, who would do the surgery and would the doctor do it the old fashioned cut you totally open method that is considered the most painful surgery there is, or would he opt for trying to get it out via belly button surgery and just a few holes in my belly.

Enter Doc Shamos to my rescue! LOL, no kidding. I got the same surgeon all these years later and he was just at wonderful today as he was back then. He and I had a great time catching up on our lives as he visited me during my five day hospital stay. He did manage to get that darn gallbladder out via my belly button, but it took some persuasion as he put it, which meant he had one hell of a time getting it out, but worked at it until he did because he didn't want to have to cut me open badly. I didn't mind being bruised up a bit around the holes where he took it out at. That was so much less painful than being cut open across my entire belly would have been. I never want to go thru that again if I don't have to. Once for the gut surgery was plenty thank you. Heh.

OK now we are at this past year in June when I'm at my Thyroid doc's office and she's telling me I could have it removed and I said that is what I wanted. I then asked if I could use my own surgeon and she said 'well, the hospital has certain ones that normally work here' and I said 'yes, like Doc Shamos?' and she goes 'Ohhhhhh, you know Doctor Shamos? He's the best!' I told her 'I know he's the best and that's why I'd want him as my surgeon once again.' She arranged it and for the 3rd time Doc Shamos was removing body parts from me and he got rid of the Thyroid and it's tumor. When I saw him at my post op visit I told him I was starting to run out of available body parts to donate to his cause and I may need to find other reasons to come see him, LOL. He laughed and said maybe I'd get lucky and never see him again ... I told him I thought I never would after the *first* surgery but after three I was beginning to consider moving into his office. Hehe.

Put me down as survivor .. twice. The first time was in 2004 after I had my uterus removed after it became tilted, a side effect from my Crohn's Disease. Pathology let my OB/GYN know post surgery that they found pre-cancerous cells on the cervix, but I didn't need to worry since that was removed with the uterus obviously. I wasn't too shocked hearing that news, since most of the women in my bloodline have had hysterectomies for cancer. I think I'm the only one who didn't have one for that reason .. me, ever being the oddball. LOL.

Then this past June I had to have my Thyroid removed for Grave's Disease/Hyperthyroidism. Again, we didn't think too much of it, I'd dealt with the crap for 2 years and the doc gave me a choice, have it removed or stay on the meds for it. Well, the meds weren't working well and the side effects of the hyperthyroidism weren't kind to me .. to the point my personality totally changed and I became a person I didn't know and whom I didn't like. The easy going lady was replaced by a *itch, from hell to put it nicely .. and trust me that IS the nicest thing I could say about the way I was. As soon as the surgery was done and my hormones went back to normal ranges, I got myself and my peace back. I'd missed it. Then I went to the post surgery checkup and my surgeon told me that pathology had found the cancerous tumor in the right side of the thyroid when they did the exam on it. I'm really starting to hate those guys in pathology. Hahaha.

The good news is since the tumor was intact and my surgeon removed the Thyroid all in one piece, it was totally removed. I was considered 'cured' right away since it was totally gone and they felt no further treatment was needed. To say I'm thankful after reading thru this thread would be a huge understatement. My heart goes out to each and every one of you whom posted here. Cancer is a horrible thing and if I had my way, no one would ever get it again.

Just curious what you ended up getting. I have Win 8.1 now and totally love it. Of course I avoid everything to do with it's stupid apps, which I have no need for on a PC with a non touchable monitor. There's no way I'm giving up my 28" monitor and losing it's wonderful size just so I can touch a tiny monitor and spend half my day cleaning up fingerprints from it. Heh, *not* my idea of fun. That said .. I LOVE the other stuff win 8 has given me. The graphics of Direct X 11 are so totally cool for the games that are now being made and I'm loving it. Win 8 is also so much faster of an OS than any of the other Windows versions that I've had, but keep in mind I went from Vista to 8 and skipped 7 totally. I have used 7 when working on other peoples' computers, but never did have it myself. I'm rebuilding my computer, as it's been a few years and it's needed to be done for awhile now. LOL, I'm still running an old dual core, 3.0 CPU system here. I think the only part of it I'll end up not replacing will be my power supply and even that may go as it's only a 700 watt and it's being pressed to it's limits in order to push enough power to run just 3 of my 4 hard drives. I will need a new one if I decide to add in the 4th drive full time and not just use it on an occasional basis (when I can turn off one of my huge fans that's extra, thus gaining enough power to run the drive for a short amount of time without doing any damage to anything).

If you are a person who likes apps, then you'll love Win 8. I can't afford them, being on SSI, so I knew from the git go I'd never have use of them and I turned all of them off that I could on day one. LOL. You can also configure your system to boot straight into the desktop, something it doesn't do by default if you aren't aware of that. I found the instructions on the web and they were very easy to follow and do. That was one of the best things I found to help me out and thus I now avoid the app window totally unless I choose to go to it, which I never do.

Other than the Win 8, I've gotten a new video card. I found a good deal on an ATI Radeon 7850. Next I will get a new motherboard, CPU and RAM, then made the decision about the power supply. That will set me up for another few years of gaming fun. Hah, at least I'm honest about what I do most. Anyone who has 4 hard drives 2 small ones each around 250 gig in size, one that's 500 gig and my new one that is 3 T in size. I have one partition I use for programs and one for misc. stuff like pics and videos I see and want to save. The rest is all games that I've gotten thru the years and saved. I never delete games unless they are really that bad and instead have just added more hard drive space as it's been needed. A few of my old games I do have on disc, so they aren't always installed, but the majority I've gotten off the web or via downloading from Steam. Over the years it's added up to where I probably have around 200 games on my system right now and up to 50 more not installed. I need to burn them to a DVD I guess one day, but I'm always afraid the minute I delete anything off the hard drive, the DVD would get destroyed and after losing one hard drive full of games in the past, it's an experience I never want to go thru again. To this day I still haven't been able to find all the games I lost copies of and replaced them.

Last that reminds me, Win 8 doesn't work with all programs. If you have older programs you use daily/often, research it first to make sure that win 8 or now you'd want to check win 8.1 to be exact, can in fact run the program correctly. I've had quite a few of my older games that just totally refuse to work on Win 8. I am thinking of putting win XP back on one of my smaller drives and doing a dual boot once I get totally rebuilt here and then I'll be able to play the other games again when I want to. Just sucks that I have to do that. It's not really win 8, it's Direct X that changed I think I read and if the game/program makers haven't put out a patch, then once you upgrade from Direct X 9 to 10 or 11, some programs no longer work. I've heard that is true with XP, Vista, 7 and 8. So anyone reading this that suddenly finds a program that isn't working, think about upgrades you've done and if one of them was Direct X, then that is probably the problem. You could downgrade and old programs will work again or go to a dual boot system and run two separate Direct X versions that way as I will do and then be able to run everything old and new.

I DO have a verified healing I can attest to! This past June I was cured of cancer ... just as soon as my surgeon removed the cancerous tumor infested thyroid of mine. Bwhahahaha. Once he cut my throat open and yanked that sucker out, no more cancer ... I was cured!!! Yep, for those curious enough, I do have pics I can share of my throat, taken a few days after the surgery before I was healed up much, showing my cut throat. They aren't bloody or gory, but plainly show where I was sliced open across the entire front of my throat.

Sorry, I *had* to post this. It called to me as I read thru the thread and once healings were mentioned. Hehe, I thought of this 'healing' of mine and thought I'd give everyone a smile and hopefully a laugh or two at my expense. While I can laugh about it now, at the time it wasn't fun going thru surgery. Thankfully, I wasn't aware the tumor was there until after the surgery was done and over with, so I didn't have the 'cancer worry' or whatever you'd call it that so many cancer victims must deal with. God was looking out for me I feel. Losing my gallbladder the previous year to infection and then facing yet another major surgery was enough on my plate to deal with mentally. (Pre-surgery sonograms and x-rays never saw the tumor, even though it was big enough they should have.) Pathology actually found the tumor when they received the thyroid and checked it over post surgery, as they do for everyone who has something removed. They notified my surgeon who then informed me when I saw him at a post surgery visit a week or two later. He was as surprised as I was to hear there was a tumor there. We were both under the impression it was just messed up due to my Grave's Disease, but it was even worse than we ever suspected.

Anyway, here's a healing story for the thread. *Not* exactly the type of healing meant, but as close as I can come to it. Heh.

One thing I'd love to know -- what ever happen to the original poster? Has anyone heard from him over the past couple of years? I wonder what ever happened with him and the girl he was dating. Maybe he'll stop in one day and give us an update, I'd love to know if they are still together or not ......

This information at the bottom of this post was found about Donna, but the phone number with the address was no good, so I didn't put it here. I'm not even sure the address is any good. This was found on Intelius, which isn't the best search site to use to find someone. They tend to have old addresses and phone numbers I've found thru the years. At least they did have her full name and relatives listed though so I could post them here. I know James is her hubby and her kids are Lacy and Tony. I'm not sure who the other people are. If anyone else out there has access to other search sites, I'd appreciate you running her name and checking to see if you get any different information. I hate being this close and not finding her.

One of her old numbers did go thru to a nice gentleman who informed me he'd had the number for the past 5 years and for the first 4 years of having the number he dealt with tons of creditors calling for Donna ALL the time. Hearing that scares me, since it almost screams out I will never hear from her or my mom's lawyer and Donna does plan on ripping off all of my mom's possessions and my kids will lose everything my mom wanted them to inherit when she passed away. *Sigh* I wish I could afford to hire a P.I. to find her, but I can't afford it. Anyway, if enough of you are looking, which it seems you are, one of us hopefully will come across a good address and phone number for her. Thank you so much for the help that's been offered so far and for any future help that may be had. My kids and I so appreciate it.

Donna Jean Owens More Info DOB: Mar 23rd, 1959 AGE: 54 years old RELATIVES: James Owens (56) Lacey Owens (29) Tony Owens Shaundrill Owens (37) Randy Owens (60) Alonzo Owens (49) Ida Owens (78) Madison Owens (41) Montiavious Owens (24) Address 1: 432 Eddy LN Franklin, TN 37064

Donna has lived in Georgia and then moved to Franklin, Tenn., but where she went from there I don't know. She could still be in Franklin for all I know, but I've been unable to find a phone number for her and when I did get someone to contact her to ask her to call me, she never did. Even her taking my mother and my aunt to Franklin shocked me. We are related to Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy and the Battle of Franklin was one of the worst in the Civil War. NOT a town I'd ever want to put relatives. It really irks me that she did that. Around 7000 confederate soldiers died that day at Franklin, while the north lost around 1200. Such a horrible battle. Today Franklin may be a nice place to live, from pics I've seen online it looks nice, but having such close ties to the Civil War, it's not a place I could live in comfort.

Thanks Hap, I'm replying here so others who find the link know I'm aware of it. You found the Emeritus Retirement Living link, which was the last link I found for her online. That is the organization I referred to that will openly lie and say residents don't live there, even if they do, if you aren't on their 'approved' list of who can talk to that resident. Yes, they are aware I am her daughter. I got around that by finding a phone number for my mom and did get to talk to her, very briefly, but long enough to say 'I love you Momma' after finding it. She told me 'I love you too'. The number was changed shortly after that, removed from her name and she was moved to another facility. Emeritus should be ashamed of themselves. All I ever wanted was to know my mother was OK. I wasn't going to bother her, I was forced into calling her and thus losing her when they wouldn't give me any information.

I last talked to the home Emeritus organization yesterday when I asked if they would *now* tell me where she had been living, since she was dead. I only want what is rightly mine as her only heir .. her possessions. What good does family pictures do for them? I know what good the letter from Teddy Roosevelt, a full page in length and written by hand, complete with envelope and stamp does for them or the greedy relative I'm trying to stop from getting it. My mom protected that letter and other such family items her whole life so on her death it would all go to me and then to my kids. Many times relatives wanted to 'sell it' and she and her sister and brother kept it safe for me. Now thanks to my uncle's sister, Donna Owens, who has no business keeping any of it from me and my ex hubby, Larry Dudley who those of you from North Carolina will know, my kids won't ever get to see any of it. Instead of me arranging for it to arrive here and go into safety deposit so I can keep it safe as she did, I'm sitting here crying my eyes out and feeling so very ripped off.

I thank God I did find that link when it first went up and got to talk to her one last time, as I do have peace from that now that she's gone. I knew it was coming and soon, it goes with the disease she had and her advanced age. I didn't expect what Larry and Donna did to me.

After 40 years of smoking I quit using ECigs. I did a whole lot of research before buying and went with http://www.firelight-fusion.com/ as they sell USA made ECigs and have the lowest prices around. They are out of Florida, so consider that if you order from them .. there will be up to a 4 to 5 day delay from the time you place your order until your ECigs arrive in the US Mail, depending on how far away from Florida you live. I'm in Phoenix, so it usually takes about 4 days for product to get to me.

I didn't intentionally start out wanting to quit smoking. It just got too expensive, so ECigs were the way to go. Our cig bill went from $250.00 a month down to $30.00 or less after the initial cost of buying an ECig kit. We went with their couples kit which was just shy of 100 bucks. Over time I just started using the ECig less and less and one day I put it down and never picked it up again. My hubby will uses his, but not at anything near the amount of real cigs he used to smoke. Neither of us liked their pre-filled filters and so we buy the empty filters and liquid, then fill them ourselves. We are both menthol cig users and prefer the taste of the liquid they sell over what is in the pre-filled filters (I'm thinking maybe cause the filters sit around for a longer time and it gets stale, while buying the liquid and filling filters ourselves gets us fresh liquid that tastes even better than real cigs we think).

The best way to start using an ECig is to get your kit, but do NOT start using it until first thing in the morning on the day you decide you are going to make the change. Doing that neither of us had any problems changing and in fact prefer the ECigs over real cigs. Hope this info helps people who are thinking about going to an ECig. It's sure the best thing we ever did in our lives.

I last found my mom 2 years ago in Franklin, Tn. Within a month's time, my uncle's sister and my ex husband made sure the phone was disconnected and she (and my aunt if she is still living) was moved to another retirement home. They were smart, they used a retirement company that has many places around the country and who will NOT tell me any information, even though I'm her only heir/child. My mom had Alzheimer's, so who knows what paperwork they got her to sign. I just know my entire life my mom spent protecting those heirlooms, to make sure greedy relatives couldn't get them and they would go to my kids. Once her mind was gone enough and I was out of state and fighting my own battle with medical problems, they made sure to step in and make sure her remaining years were kept from me. I've been told she wanted no contact with me by my ex hubby, but given the other lies he's been telling and his continued involvement in TWI, I now wonder if she really did want that. I've begged and pleaded with him in the past to tell me where she was, but all he'd do is send me back very nasty emails full of the typical TWI type lies and insinuations.

A few months ago I had my cancerous thyroid removed. While I'm now 'cured' and 100% cancer free, the years long battle to figure out what was wrong with me, in addition to my other medical probs, left me weak and tired. I live off of SSI, which pays me 710 bucks a month. Obviously I have no savings. That leaves me in a bad position to try to locate the missing relative, who's name is Donna Owens, should anyone want to do some searching and know of a place I haven't looked yet. She's married with 2 kids and is around 55 to 57 years of age if memory serves correctly. Due to my bad relationship with my uncle when he was living, she wouldn't have anything to do with me. Funny that, the man, who was a P.I. and worked for the Dental Board of Florida, asked me to be one of his 'girls' and that alone was enough for me to never want to talk to him ever again. His 'girls' were the women who went into the offices of bad Dentists and allowed the docs to have sex or almost have sex with them, in order to prove in court the doctor was bad. Yes, this may be a needed evil in the world, but to ask his NIECE to do this? I was appalled then and to this day I still am, that he would ask such a thing of me.

I'm out of ideas at this point on what to do. It makes me sad that these people would rip off my kids of the items my mother wished them to have handed down to them, just so they can make a buck or two selling them on the open market. It really makes me sick. While she was still living I at least had a chance to find her and was always actively looking, but now that she has died, it won't take them long to rape over her possessions. I keep praying that I'm wrong and my phone will ring and I will be told that my mom's belongings will be sent to me and her lawyer will contact me about the reading of her will. I will post if that should happen, but past experience tells me my phone will more than likely remain quiet and everything will be lost.

I just received word that my mother passed away this morning, July 25, 2013 and I now have no more need to try to keep her safe. Due to her continued involvement in TWI, I never revealed who I was in here to anyone. Marge Trager got into TWI in 1976, 2 years after I did, but I left after 20 years, she did not. I'm her daughter, Nancy. Many knew my mom, she was F12, if I'm remembering the number correctly. I never had any desire to go any further than the Intermediate Class, so not as many people knew me. I only stayed involved to keep an eye on her, so hopefully she wouldn't be used and abused by TWI higher ups. I never could get her to leave and in the end, it cost us our relationship. I haven't had any contact with her in many years, by her choice and right now am trying to figure out where she was living, in order to get family items I'd like passed on to my kids sent to me that I know she had with her. So far it's a no go and it may turn out that TWI will cost my kids their inheritance. How nice. My ex husband, Larry Dudley, knows all the answers, but he's still in TWI and has made it clear he won't help me.

Sorry this is so short. I'm having a hard type typing because I'm crying so hard. Anyone who knew my mom should feel free to add their thoughts to the thread.

Being poor sucks, I must say. Being too sick to work, I depend on SSI. They give me a whole $670 bucks a month to live on and the state kicks in with $125 bucks worth of food stamps. For those engaged in this thread, the chruches only serve a small majority of the poor. Your local non church food banks are the ones serving the majority of the hungry in your city I'd bet. The churches will help the poor members of their church first, then take whatever is leftover in the poor fund to donate to other poor in the town. I don't disagree with that at all, but if you are expecting your donation to go out to the total poor of your city, you need to know how these things work.

Then there are those like me who don't have a car. Can't afford one after paying 500 for rent each month (it also covers utilities for my tiny studio apt). What is left goes for toilet paper, paper towels, extra food that I need at the end of every month since the food stamps don't last a full month ever. My electric wheelchair won't make it round trip to the food bank places in the city and I can't afford the bus ticket. Someone needs to figure out who to get help to those who can't go to a few select areas of each city to go get food or whatever. There should ALSO be an option that if the food bank type places try to give you a box of food stuffs you don't ever eat, you should be able to trade that product(s) for some they have that you do like. Trust me, I tried that years ago when I lived somewhere else and after a fire needed a bit of help getting above water again. They expect you to take what they give you and be happy. All the poor I know and many in this building use food banks monthly, take almost half the 'food' in their box and throw it away each and every month. I've seen what some put out on our community free bench and even when hungry I wouldn't take it home. What good is there to a small bag of pasta if there's nothing to put on top of it or mix into it? Besides, pasta and my Crohn's don't like each other very often and I know better than to eat it and risk getting sicker than I already am.

Sharon knew how much you loved her Excie. She loved you back just as much.

Anyone who hung out in chat before Sharon died, she used her name in there ... so if you ever talked to 'Sharon' in chat .. you met her. As far as all of the many other unanswered questions, I'm sorry I can't answer those. I wish I knew the answers myself. Her ex hubby sent me a friend request on Facebook and I accepted it. When I looked over what all he'd put up, I saw where he mentioned Sharon had died.

I immediately emailed him and put a note on his wall informing him to look for it. If he read it or not is anyone's guess. I never heard back from him and have spent the past 2 years wishing he would respond so I could find out what happened.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgdIE2t8QkM&feature=player_detailpage

I hope this works. The music is in this Jetman video, which will also just blow your mind if you have never heard of him. He has more vids on his site if you are interested: www.jetman.com , but the music in this video wouldn't leave my head after I first heard it and I ended up researching it out. It's called Adiemus, which also describes the type of music it is. Oh where's that fiddle picker anyway, he could probably explain it all better than me. Heh.




The research brought me to discover Karl Jenkins. For those that don't know of him, the 'words' to this song aren't words at all. The singer is singing sounds Karl wrote to go with the music that the orchestra is playing. The end result is the singer is 'singing' her part of the score that goes flawlessly with the music the instruments are 'singing'. As soon as I can afford it, I hope to buy some of his albums that have the Adiemus music on them.




Yes, those that watch commercials have heard this music before, it was originally written for an airline commercial .. Delta if I remember right. I haven't had a TV in 20 years, so don't quote me on that. Think that's what I read in posts though. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

What was the "coolest" moment of the very last semester..

proving by induction that a midpoint convex function is convex, if it is continuous..

really.. I think it was at that point I was at least partially convinced that I knew what I was doing..

it was a proof with double induction. Before then, I had no idea what double induction even meant..

The professor there said something.. like.. "I don't even know if you can use induction like this with a function.."

If I ever instruct a calculus class, I will show them how to prove the power rule for differentiation with whole number exponents using induction.

Newton's series is way too much for something like that.. of course, that will be needed with fractional and irrational exponents.

The diploma looks great my friend but .....

can you like, ummm, retype your post for me in english so I can understand it?

(Remember, I'm the one who passed Jr. High and High School math cause both teachers were my neighbors and they couldn't bear the thought of more than one year with me as a student. Passing with a D was just fine with me. At least I passed.)

You *do* know that 'math' is a 4 letter word, don't you?

Wow, I can't stop crying. I'm soooo happy for the both of you. Congrats and thanks for posting the pics so all of us could 'see' you on your special day. :)

Paw, do you need an invite to google plus? I can send ya one, I got as many as they give ya, haven't run into anyone who wants one yet.

What does that mean???

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BIKER BABE!!

First, thank you everyone. I've been so busy with new doctors and more new doctors that I'm getting dizzy. LOL. My new family doc (GP) has been seeing me every 2 weeks now for a couple of months. I see him again on Friday, Aug 1st. He's done some tests that he wanted results of and an EKG for my pain doc since I'm on Methadone and a yearly EKG is a *MUST HAVE* when taking that painkiller. The pain doc I see once a month (Aug 22nd) and my GP doc just added a new G.I. doc into the mix. I see him on Aug. 26th. I have a feeling one more appt will be added in the middle of the month after I see the GP doc on Friday. I think about the fact I still have a few more specialists to add to our list, but we aren't rushing. I'm going to see them and get settled in with them one at a time, starting with the worst health problem working down to the least of my worries. So having Crohn's, the G.I. doc was first.

NottaWayfer, David and I have a longstanding joke between us. He's like 6'5" to my 5' even. My hair is now down past my butt, so I sit on it. David reminds me that human hair is the best thing to restring a fiddle bow with. Then I threaten to find a ladder, climb up it and bite him in the kneecap ... darn tall people anyway! LOL. We have a lot of fun with it. I just did my best to measure it by myself, not real easy to do, but the other half is still at work. I got 31 inches. That means it's now more than half my height .... that's kinda cool when I think about it.

For those I haven't seen and talked to lately, which is most of you reading this, one of the nurse practitioners I used to see at my pain doc's clinic sent me for an MRI of my spine. I have bad pain in my shoulders, neck and lower back, which I have always figured came from a few car wrecks I've been in and from the Fibromyalgia I have. Wrong. The test results showed spinal arthritis (Spondylosis) C4 to C7 and that plus lumbar disk bulge L4 to L5 and L5 to S-1. So it wasn't just the Fibro or whiplash, although those didn't help it any. I had noticed over the past year or two it seemed to be hurting more and I now have trouble getting up on my own if sitting on the floor working on a computer or something. He told me it will continue to get worse thruout the rest of my life. Yee Haw, doesn't that sound fun? NOT!

My GP doc after doing the EKG for the pain doc, had me have a sonogram of my heart. It was way cool to watch on the screen. She showed me the whole inside of my heart and I was watching it beat and hearing it too when she turned the speaker on for a short time. It sounded louder and different than my kids hearts did when they were monitored during labor. I found it very interesting. Then next he did a sonogram of the arteries on both sides of my neck. They weren't as cool as the heart to see, but I could see the blood rushing thru them. Both tests showed all was fine inside me there.

Oh yeah, my weight got up to 106 pounds last month, but I had a couple bad weeks this past month and lost a couple. It won't take very long to gain them back. I'm staying pretty steady now between 102 to 106. This is the only time in my life that I've weighed over 100 pounds and wasn't pregnant! I'm thrilled, but the downside is after putting on 30 pounds in a year (76 to 106), none of my clothes fit. I've had to buy some new stuff. The CVS on the corner near us has some great deals on T-shirts, short or sleeveless shirts, shorts and jogging pants. They work fine for everyday wear. Now that I've saved up some money and bought the most important things first and built myself a new computer, AMD dual core, ATI Radeon 3870 says it all to the geeks here, very sweet ... well, now I can save up and buy a couple pairs of jeans. LOL.

For my birthday the hubby bought me a MP4 Media Player that is sooo cool. It does music and I ripped a few of my CD's the other day. They sound great on it and I only had it set at the default, middle setting for quality. It has 8 gigs of room on it and has a mini SD card slot on the bottom that will allow me to add more if I need it. I'm thinking of putting a couple movies on some 8 gig cards and then when I'm passing time in doctors waiting rooms I can watch a movie if I don't feel like any of my music or listening to it's FM Radio, which I can also record songs from. I have yet to do much with the video recorder and player. I watched one short video we took of me last year on my mountain bike showing off what looks like a moving light show when I ride after dark. I have blinking lights all around it in various colors and blink patterns and then a very bright headlight that allows me to see what's ahead of me for quite a way. Some friends were worried I wouldn't be seen at night, so I wanted to ease their mind and show them I can't be missed. LOL. Anyway, the video looked really good and convinced me I could easily watch a movie on the 2.8 inch screen without any eye strain. There's no keyboard like my cell phone has, but I can put text files into the player from my computer. It does Ebooks too, which is something I really want to look in to. I'm thinking about buying one this month and see how easy they are to read compared to a real book or my 22" LCD monitor. As you can see, I just love it. He told me he wasn't sure if I'd like it or not when he ordered it and planned it so FedEx would deliver it on my birthday. Totally unexpected and a very fun, cool toy for me. It goes well with my other USB toys around here.

After building my new computer, I needed one more thing besides the new monitor. I found a wonderful Logitech 5.1 surround sound speaker system that was just the price I love .. on sale. LOL. I was running low on funds, but the sale saved me and I got them at a great price. It is a 155 watt system and it peeks at 300 watts. I now tease my neighbor that if he makes me mad I will melt the wall between us. Hehe. He and I hang out when we both are home with nothing to do, at one or the other place. He has Cerebral Palsy, so I pretty much let him decide where he'd rather be. We both have coffee pots, so it doesn't matter. We're both half crazy, like when I hop on the back of his power chair and he gives me a ride down the sidewalk. It's too funny to watch the people driving by, they do a double take and realize we're both in our 50's and acting like kids. Heh, ya gotta have fun. We're thinking of a video .. tie a rope to his power chair, put me in my regular wheelchair behind him holding the other end of the rope. We both think it would be fun to put it online and give people a laugh. In a couple of months when it finally cools off here, we'll get serious about finding the rope. Way too hot right now to do anything outside for very long.

I'll end this update of my strange and crazy life by telling you about a birthday gift that was sent to me by a couple of very sweet ladies from this forum. They sent me Kris' new book and as many have already said, it's a great read. I will re-read it again in the near future. Books that I really like I put in a special place on the bookshelves, so they are easy to get to when I want to read one of them. There's not many there, but Kris' book WILL be there now that I've finished the first reading of it. She's a very good writer and I'd recommend the book to everyone. It's a story everyone who was in TWI should hear (read).

Thank you all again for the birthday wishes. It was a really great one this year! I hope I didn't bore you all by the 'book' I just wrote here. LOL. I figured it was easier to put it all here and get everyone up to date at the same time. :) I sure love y'all.